


a thing with feathers

by Riverdaughter



Series: Dick and Dami Week 2021 [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman Incorporated (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Forever Evil (Comics), Grayson (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Brothers, Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne are Siblings, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Forever Evil (Comics), Protective Damian Wayne, References to Forever Evil (Comics), Spyral (DCU), Tumblr: Dick and Dami Week, dickanddamiweek2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29913648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverdaughter/pseuds/Riverdaughter
Summary: Dick leans into the gentle touch with a naturalness that causes Damian’s heart to…malfunction slightly; there are very few people that Damian wishes to feel safe in his presence, but Dick is at the head of the list.Dick and Damian have a moment of mutual understanding after a run-in with Harvey Dent.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Series: Dick and Dami Week 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199723
Comments: 8
Kudos: 117
Collections: DickAndDamiWeek2021





	a thing with feathers

**Author's Note:**

> For Dick and Dami Week 2021 
> 
> Day 1 - #JustSiblingThings / English as Second Language / ~~“Did you really mean that?” ~~~~~~

A Light exists in Spring  
Not present on the Year  
At any other period —  
When March is scarcely here

-Emily Dickinson 

“Did you really mean that?” Dick asks so long after their reunion that Damian isn’t sure what he is talking about at first. He’s hurt from a confrontation with Two-Face and most of what he has said for the last few hours has not made much sense.

“Tt, what are you babbling about now?” he asks with more gentleness than is his wont, Dick has been odd since he got back, and he is injured. Damian doesn’t like to consider it ever, but hurt and confused, Dick looks _fragile_.

“That you missed me? When I first got back from Spyral,” Dick clarifies quietly, eyes catching Damian’s with an intensity that takes him aback, “It sometimes feels that everyone else was angrier about me being alive than happy that I _was_ alive you know. But you were happy, I think.”

“I was happy,” Damian reassures him, head wounds can have unexpected effects and Harvey had gotten more than one hit in. There is no one else in the cave at the moment and Damian lets slip his more stoic persona to reach out and smooth his brother’s tangled curls.

Dick leans into the gentle touch with a naturalness that causes Damian’s heart to…malfunction slightly, there are very few people that Damian wishes to feel safe in his presence, but Dick is at the head of the list and it is good to have the confirmation that their respective brushes with death and mortality have not changed anything. 

“I miss you, Dami,” Dick half-sobs pulling away from touch, “You don’t know how much, it feels, it feels like someone reached into my chest and tore away my heart. Like everything is dimmer without you. You would have liked that wouldn’t you, that all the color seeped out of the world when you died. How did you do it?”

“Do what Richard?” Damian asks wondering if he should call Alfred, Dick seems worse than confused, like he doesn’t realize that Damian is alive and well beside him. Perverse curiosity keeps him rooted in place, he can’t give up this chance to know what Dick truly thinks of him deeply bewildered and artless as he right now.

“Make me love you so much,” his brother says, embarrassing tears trickling out of those desperate blue eyes as they wander, “I didn’t know what to expect when we first met, and you hurt Timmy but all I could do in the end was love you. And you died.” His voice sinks into a whisper, “I think I’m going to see you soon, Dami and I’m, I’m almost glad that it was me that the Syndicate got. I know that’s a terrible thing to say but they can’t really hurt me. Not where it matters.”

“You don’t know what you are saying, Richard,” Damian tells him, alarmed, “Father is going to rescue you, you will be fine you silly…acrobat.”

“Nope,” Dick argues back, his eyes still hazy and lost, “Owlman told me, Nightwing dies, one way or the other. Everything blows up if they don’t stop my heart. But they don’t understand; it already stopped.”

Damian calls Alfred.

* * *

And avoids Dick once his brother remembers that he is home, not in the hands of the Crime Syndicate, that Damian is real and not a phantom conjured up to ease his captivity. On one level Damian understands the hopeless emotion in his brother’s voice, and yet on another it frightens him. It is terrifying and exhilarating to know that he, _Damian Wayne_ has that kind of hold on Dick’s heart.

So, Damian does what Waynes do best with complex emotions and utterly ignores them…and their cause. Or at least he tries…

Dick finds him long before he is ready.

People think that Dick is the “people-person” of the Bat clan, that he is the “nice” one; Damian himself had believed this when they first met. He’d thought it was a weakness and he had been wrong on two counts. Because while Dick is kind and cheerful and friendly, he also possesses a will of tempered steel and a stern bluntness to match it when needed. Drive him into a corner and he will fight like a cornered lion, hurt his friends or family and he destroy you, love him and he will follow you to the gates of death itself.

Or so it seems. Damian has made good use of his time and read through his father’s account of the debacle with the Crime Syndicate.

“Dami?”

“Richard,” he says evenly, because he is a Wayne, an al Ghul and he does not cry.

“You’ve been avoiding me, little brother?” Dick asks, but it is not a question, not really.

“You were hurt,” Damian says inanely, and is immediately angry at himself.

“But I’m fine now,” Dick answers, “And I’m sorry if I said something that upset you, I wasn’t sure where I was and I probably didn’t mean it.”

“I think you did mean it,” Damian says without thinking and every trace of geniality dissipates from his brother leaving only sorrow and worry.

“What did I say, Damian?”

“You thought that I was still dead,” Damian says crisply, “That the Crime Syndicate was going to kill you.”

“And…”

“You weren’t sorry, you just kept saying that you missed me, that it didn’t matter if they tried to stop your heart, because it already had.” Damian yells and Dick drops to his knees and holds out his arms.

“I wasn’t sorry,” Dick says gently, “not entirely, because I did miss you, so very much and I was so _lost_ without you, but I didn’t want to die if that’s what is bothering you. I just didn’t mind so much; I was hurt and un-masked and you died _for me_ and that was a hard thing to live with Dami.”

And it’s the blunt honesty, the desolation in Dick’s voice that makes Damian yield and throw himself into those welcoming arms.

“When I woke up and you were gone,” he says softly, “The world felt cold, like it was stuck in winter and spring was never going to come.”

Dick smiles, “You know what they say about spring and robins right? And we are both here now.”

And Damian has a hundred things he could respond to that, a hundred questions about what actually happened while he was dead, while Dick was dead. But right now, he is content to simply lean into his brother’s embrace and be thankfully that they are both somehow alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Because they are not nearly enough fics explore either Damian realizing just how much Dick missed him or how ironic stopping the heart of DC’s King of Hearts is in Forever Evil....
> 
> Comments are encouraged :)


End file.
